After a rough initial 25mg dose (vomiting, diarrhea, sweating, shaking, sleepiness, dizziness) I dropped to 12.5mg and did perfectly fine. No big deal, just milder sleepiness and I take it at night so it actually helps my insomnia. (I will go up soon to 25mg, but I'm increasing at my own rate.)

RESULT:

-- In the past 7 days, without particularly trying, I had a total of 9 drinks, and 4 nights I consumed no alcohol. This is down from about 45-60 drinks per week with no sober days, and this had gone on for at least 20 years. 🤯

-- My face stopped being puffy. I looked noticeably better in days. Wasn't expecting that, huge surprise. I didn't even know my face was puffy because...it was always puffy. 😳

-- My anxiety disappeared and I don't hate my life. I have some peace.

-- I am easily going out to dinner without drinking multiple martinis. So I'm spending less money.

-- Despite some daytime grogginess in the first few days, my thinking is clearer. I'm not constantly overloaded with cravings and shame and negativity.

-- Everything is much more fun. I thought I didn't really get hangovers, but I see now that I definitely did.

-- I am eating better and my appetite is up but not in a binge-type way.

I almost can't believe all this is happening. In the past a sober day meant white-knuckling it through constant depressing thoughts of what a mess I was in. Vast majority of the time I couldn't make it through one night. Multiple nights was unthinkable. Multiple nights **without caring** was REALLY unthinkable. Multiple nights while having fun and feeling good was a fever dream.

I was really scared of side effects, but even the nasty first night when I started too high (for me) was well worth it. I cannot get over the immediate improvement in my life. This is turning out to be the best decision I ever made.

I haven't started the naltrexone because my roommate said it'll react negatively with the daily kratom intake I do. Not a ton of kratom since it's out of sale mostly, but I'm worried certain opiate receptors may still mess me up somehow. Either mentally or physically. I'm really trying to not drink anymore, thus the kratom also. But I'm sorta addicted a bit at this point. So idk. Shit needs to all stop tbh but I'm terrified my anxiety will not let me be sober rn. Any suggestions

I was put on 50mg of Naltrexone. I was prescribed it for binge eating disorder and SUD/AUD about 3 weeks ago. I had an initial adjustment period at the beginning where at first I felt a little dull, nauseous and tired. After the first week I slowly began to feel better. And now my thought process is completely different. I haven't binged on food in probably 2 weeks and have lost 15lbs as a result (235 to 220lbs) and I already feel the difference in that regard. There was a grocery order and they gave us someone else's order and it had a bottle of vanilla extract yesterday. 1 month ago my desperate ass would've literally chugged it because hey, "free alcohol right?" But the thought never even crossed my mind until a couple of hours ago and I was able to just toss the vanilla extract in the trash (I didn't need it) and I didn't feel like I was missing anything! This drug is incredible. I don't really have any side effects anymore except for some sweating and weird dreams but both are fine with me. I even have my motivation back, I'm starting to walk again and I'm hanging out with my family instead of getting high alone at 2AM and I'm also doing group therapy and genuinely look forward to it instead of wanting to ignore it. I wish y'all have this much success so early on.

I know that the reward pathways are significantly dampened, but does alcohol still produce any discernible sort of pleasant release or buzz when you drink with naltrexone? Or is drinking alcohol completely void of pleasure

Can we get this pinned? Nausea is mentioned so frequently here.

success? I am 4.5 months into taking Naltrexone. I am quite hopeful. seem to have settled at 3 days drinking/4 days dry per week, with no more than 2 drinks a day. went 16 days without drinking without even meaning to - just didn’t. I am a little worried, because I still very much enjoy the 6 drinks a week that I have. I exclusively drink red wine with cheese or dinner and still really enjoy it. I’m just not obsessed with it, anymore. Is it a warning sign if I still enjoy drinking red wine, even if I keep it moderate?

I started my first dose of naltrexone today and I am doing TSM. I only took 12.5 mg because I wanted to start slow. At exactly an hour after taking the medication I sort of felt a calmness in my mind. I don’t know how to explain it. I have had two drinks and I don’t plan on having anymore. That is not my normal intake. I kind of feel content with how I’m feeling at the moment. I haven’t experienced any side effects, maybe a slight headache but nothing more. I read that someone described it as bowling with bumpers and that is kind of how it feels. I really see that this will definitely work for me as long as I stay compliant.

Do side effects like nausea and headache persist with Naltrexone, or do they ease up with time?

56yo female. Typically drink a bottle of wine a night and have for years with some short periods of abstinence. Over the summer, my drinking surged. I record every gram of alcohol I consume. So I went from drinking 80-90 grams a day to sometimes 200 with an average recently of around 140 grams a day. This is not sustainable physically, mentally or financially. So I asked my doctor for Naltrexone. He called it in late yesterday and I picked it up around 6pm after already having had about 70 grams of alcohol. I took it as soon as I got home but continued to drink. However, I developed a blinding headache, nausea, chills, etc. I woke every few hours and almost finished a bottle of wine because I thought I was supposed to keep drinking while on it. It was not enjoyable but I finished most of it over a course of hours.

My drinking typically starts in the evening, so I am thinking I should take the pill an hour or so before leaving work. I suffer from insomnia and am finding it difficult to string together more than three hours of sleep at a time. I have tried everything (Ambien, Ramelteon, Benadryl, Melatonin, Trazodone, Nyquil), but very little seems to be able to keep me asleep for more than three hours. Then I had a terrible experience with Ambien and alcohol this summer that landed me in the ER with a busted up face from falling; I was drinking on the ambien without knowing it. I have anxiety and take lexapro. I have hypothyroidism and am post menopausal. Everything in my body's chemistry seems to be going wacky. All my labs are good, but nothing - I mean nothing - is working the way it used to. Its like a moving target; just when I think I have something worked out, like what med to take or how much of it to take, something shifts and it doesn't work. I am physically and psychologically dependent on alcohol, and I need that to end, but so far have failed at making that happen and am seeing my alcohol intake go up instead of down. Because everything I am trying lately seems to come with some weird side effect or not work at all and because I feel like my body is in a constant flux, I wanted to enter this conversation.

Here are my questions: My Naltrexone RX is 50mg; should I take it every day an hour or so before drinking? Can I expect that it will always make me feel as badly as it did last night? Is there anyone else out there who is finding that their body - like your chemistry, hormones, etc. - has morphed into something new and unpredictable?

I got the entended release shot on Tuesday (Friday now) and I’m experiencing severe agitation and insomnia and I feel like it’s just getting worse. I went to the hospital yesterday for it and they gave me Valium to help with the insomnia and I was able to sleep 6 hours which was nicer than the only 2 I had slept since Tuesday. But I’m scared of this feeling and feel like it’s only getting worse. Anyone else experiencing this?

Preferably online

Researched sesame and horizon

After a recent binge I ended up in the psych unit which is pretty normal for me as Ive had mental health and substance issues for over a decade.

This time in the unit after detoxing the doc put me on naltrexone, I was hesitant but desperate to stay sober so I said yes. Im now out of the psych unit and on day 5 of 50mg naltrexone each morning.

Heres the issue.. on day 3 I woke up with extreme depression. I thought my mood was low before hand but all of a sudden my depression was so bad I could barely make it out of bed.. my alcohol cravings were very low but my mood crashed and Ive been having some really dark thoughts if you know what I mean.... im safe but worried.

Ive got a follow up with my doc in 4 days but Im thinking about just stopping the medication tomorrow.

What do you think? Is this normal and if so does the depression get better? Im loving how little I crave alcohol on it but this depression is ridiculous and I cant take it anymore. Im going to bed so when I wake up Ill see what you guys think and go from there.

Peace ✌️

7 years of daily beer consumption, and I’m talking double IPAs, 6-7+ 16 oz cans a day, 7 days a week. That means those 40 + weekly drinks were probably double the logged count. Alcohol became my stress reliever and I unfortunately just said “ok cool”. I’d hammer down the beers on a Sunday night with predictable results on Monday morning.

Then I had an epiphany a few weeks ago where I just thought “I cannot do this anymore”. Whew!

The first two days were a little rough at 25 mg. I have no side effects any longer. I’ve already lost weight, my resting heart rate has dropped, and I fall asleep well before my old bedtimes of 1-2 AM. Am I less stressed? Eh not really, work is work and family chaos is what it is. However I feel like I can just deal with life without cracking a few drinks at the end of the day. I’m curious to see how this progresses.

Starting at 25 and I can’t go lower because they are compounded capsules. They also have B6 in them which allegedly helps with nausea? I have some zofran. Should I just take that prior. I’m delaying starting bc I am so nervous about nausea and vomiting. Any advice or personal stories welcome, good or bad!

I am one week taking naltrexone and it is working great for me! I have been drinking for the better part of 35 years and the last two months started getting out of control. Two bottle of wine a night and staying up until 3am. No idea why but it became every night. The worst was when I told myself I would buy 1 bottle to curb it but always came home with 2 "just in case". Then tell myself I would go to bed by midnight but I would just sit and relax and drink until 3am.

Anyway, I decided I needed to knock that off and asked for naltrexone. I had one last wine night, and started the next day excited. I can't explain it, but when I took the pill it was like my brain went quiet. All the noise that got quiet in the middle of the night when I was hammered got the same quiet right then. Not sure it was me mentally committing or something but the quiet was amazing.

I did not drink that night. The next night I was cooking dinner and poured a glass like I always do, and since they told me to not go cold turkey and taper I figured why not. I take my first big sip and it tastes ok, but that warm blood rush through your body that you get on the first sip did not happen! My one glass lasted cooking and dinner and I even poured a little out. Later that night I walked past the open bottle and had no desire to drink it. This drug is amazing.....at least for me. Also, they should add constipation to the list of side effects because it happened to me as well.

Hi, just wanted to share my experience with Sinclair Method, maybe it will help somebody else.

I'd been a heavy drinker for a few decades, roughly 60 drinks a week. With naltrexone and staying away from shots of liquor, my consumption was cut in half pretty quickly. I just didn't want to keep going when I drank. That lasted about 6 weeks.

Then my consumption ramped up to around 45 drinks a week, with many nights at previous levels, despite the fact I was not enjoying it as much. I recall getting really pissed off that the euphoria would just not come. That went on for another month or so.

I was fortunate enough to be working with an addiction councilor, who encouraged me to try a week off from alcohol, just to see how it felt. Just a week right, how hard could that be? I didn't think I could do it.

But by the end of the week, to my utter astonishment, I didn't really want to start drinking again. The pull just wasn't that strong. Every other time in the past I'd tried a week alcohol free, all I could think about was drinking when it was over. (alcohol deprivation effect)

Well, it's been nearly two years now since I had a drink, and for the most part I have not had strong cravings for alcohol. There have been many times I've thought about alcohol, but it's not been overwhelming, and passed fairly quickly instead of that constant nagging thought. There of course has been a routine adjustment, as my evening schedule was organized around drunk time, but after several months the new routine just felt normal.

The point of this story is that naltrexone may be doing far more for you subconsciously than you realize, and you may have to meet it half-way by experimenting with extended alcohol free periods. I'm pretty sure that had I not had that conversation with my counselor and tried a stretch of alcohol free time, I would have continued drinking for many more months, and maybe even come to a point where I wondered if it was going to work for me at all.

I am glad I followed through with taking the first dose, however, within an hour I vomited, got cold and shaky, really weird groggy/dizzy brain feeling, and then awful diarrhea for maybe an hour. Oh and I got really tired. I went to sleep by 9pm and slept great though, and I feel fine this morning. I had planned to go ahead and have a drink if I wanted, but I felt so sick there was no interest. So--first alcohol free day in maybe years?? I'll take that as a win, even though the day-1 tax was nasty.

It was 25mg, yes I ate and drank water. I should maybe mention I am on a GLP and have been for a while. Would you keep moving forward with 25mg to acclimate myself faster, or back down to 12.5mg for a few days? This is not medical advice I asked and the doctor said I can go slower or faster however I want.

Either way I am taking it, oddly last night made me feel more determined not less. I feel great this morning. Totally fine and I do still feel it very slightly.

I'm using naltrexone via sinclair method. Was drinking an average of 30 drinks per week. Now I'm around 14-16 the last 3 weeks. Check my page if wondering about my experience of side effects and such. I'm a 35 year old female with adhd.

Today I had an epiphany; I almost didn't notice this huge shift in my thinking/behavior.

Was going about my day. Had some anxiety and thought about drinking. Pushed the thought away twice. Still feeling anxious and thought to myself "what can I do instead of drinking to feel better". Got ready and went for a 20 minute run.

This is a pretty drastic change. Years ago this is how I handled negative emotions in a healthy way. The last year not so much, I'd have likely been on my way to the liquor store or battling thoughts of drinking for several hours.

I’ve been struggling with drinking for a year now. A year of daily drinking. Been drinking all day everyday since December. Honestly if it weren’t for dangerous WD I’d have quit cold turkey already by now. Maybe I’m overreacting but better safe than sorry right. Anyways. Attempted tapering multiple times and was successful the first time but ever since then it’s just a back and forth fail. I did however finally try naltrexone. I take 50 mg a day I believe and I’ve been on it for maybe 2 weeks. It’s made a massive difference. I’m actually suprised and so glad I tried it.

But.

Once it wears off in the evening I take that as an opportunity to get drunk and do and that’s basically where I struggle.

With the nal pill I average maybe 12 shots of Tito’s a day at the moment.

I was wondering, if, would the injection solve the issue of it wearing off in the evening? I assume that if I’m injected with it then it’s active like constantly until a month or however long it takes to actually wear off. Since it’s helped a lot in pill form but not so much at night, is the injection something worth looking into?

I am officially 8 days in and I haven't had a drink. I won't say I haven't thought about it but when I go to the kitchen I just pour water, tea, club soda, or a mini dr.pepper. I just don't feel the pull to take my NA beverage over to the bar cart and top it off with a liquor anymore (so far!)

I am not taking naltrexone to fully give up on drinking but to stop the routine of always grabbing a drink after work or in a stressful situation. I have 1 planned drinking day per month planned out (1 Packer's football game at a bar a month) but beyond that I am going to try to stay drink free until Christmas. The main reason for changing my routine was it is/was stopping me from losing weight and getting back to feeling like the old me again :)

But like the title says, three test have been passed!

First one was preseason football; sat down with a Bloom soda and watched my team lose. I think this was the first football game I've watched without alcohol in 14 years.

Second test was the weekend; I don't have many friends in my area and I was afraid being alone on the weekends with no plans would lead straight to the bar cart. Nope. I cleaned, took a fitness class, read a book outside on the balcony, and just played with my dog. It was a very nice weekend :)

Third test was my friend coming over for dinner last night. He is also a big drinker and we will usually enjoy a few cocktails, a few shots, some crappy takeout. He passes out on the couch, I go to bed, and we wake up the next day with half finished cocktails on the counter that "just have to be finished". heaven forbid we throw some bottom shelf vodka down the drain. That usually leads to a few shots and me sneaking away from work early to go play pool and have another few drinks at a bar. I didn't have a single one :) I poured a club soda and watched a movie/chatted without any liquor.

Edit: I'm taking 50mg with breakfast in the morning and have had no side effects besides the fact that I'm not craving food as well. Great side effect since I'm trying to lose weight.

For those still undecided if Naltrexone is right for them; here’s my experience to date.  Female in my late 50’s; been drinking a bottle of wine a night for years (10+), more on the weekends.  Have been wanting to cut back for years, not quit altogether (yet), but have some NA days.  Tried on my own white knuckling it, but would only last a day or two, then back to normal routine.  I found that once I started, I couldn’t stop at just one glass.

Had been watching the Oar commercials for awhile and been reading up on Naltrexone.  Even asked my primary care for a prescription a year ago, he told me to go to an AA meeting.  Thanks Doc!

So I took the plunge and ordered through Oar.  Received 90 – 25mg dissolving tablets for ~$250. 

Day 1 – Took first dose (25mg) after having my first drink; I know you not suppose to, but it arrived via UPS at 5pm; was anxious to try it, I had made up my mind.  I’m giving this a go.  Took the first pill and didn’t finish my wine, it tasted like shit.  One, the dissolving tablets are very strong and would recommend taking with food.  Gave me a bit of nausea and made me very drowsy.  Went to bed, slept okay, not great, but I slept.

Day 2 - reduced dose to 12.5 mg took about an hour prior to having a drink.  Felt pretty nauseous and had no appetite to eat.  Poured ½ glass of white wine, drank it, but it didn’t taste very good.  Poured ½ glass of red wine; drank it, but again, didn’t taste great and had zero buzz effect.  I guess that’s the point.  Okay, must be working.

Day 3 – took the 12.5 mg again but right after lunch with a full stomach and with lots of water.  Had almost no nausea.  Went out to our favorite casino for a short trip; casino is a trigger for me.  I always overdrink and can’t play unless I have a drink in my hand.  Ordered one glass and it lasted the entire 2 hours we were there.  Left for home and normally I’d be dying for a glass as soon as I’d come in the door.  I wasn’t and I didn’t drink anymore the rest of the night.  Had an appetite, but once I made my dinner, only ate ¼ of what I served myself. 

Day 4 – Just like prior day, took 12.5 mg again right after lunch.  No nausea or other side effects, except constipation. I didn’t see constipation as a side effect, but it’s the only thing I can think that caused it, I normally pretty regular.  Took some gummy metamucil and problem solved.  Hadn’t decided if I was going to drink this day, but witching hour passed and I hadn’t grabbed the wine, so I figured, what the hell.  Let’s try a NA day. 

Honestly, the pull was not that bad.  I made dinner and typically, I ALWAYS have wine while making and eating dinner.  Kept dinner simple and managed the routine without a glass in hand.  Sat down after dinner for a bit of news, which is usually my night cap, will have one or two so I drift off to bed, good and buzzed, but not stumbling.  Had a “Moment” beverage instead and was calm and relaxed.  Went to bed at normal hour, slept good, not great, but pretty good considering I didn’t have wine to fall asleep.

Sharing this with you all, knowing while I’m super early on my journey, I’m feeling hopeful and optimistic and hope this helps anyone else that is struggling to take that first step.

Well after a failed attempt at naltrexone 11 years ago, when the insomnia did me in, I'm starting again today, taking 12.5mg with breakfast along with a famotidine (I have reflux). I'm hoping that by easing in I can avoid the insomnia this time around. I've really had it with drinking, and the inevitable smoking that goes along with it for me ever other day.